For our last family trip, we went up to Flagstaff earlier this year and that was so much fun! For my dad’s 60th birthday, we decided to do something similar and rent out a cabin, but this time, we would go to Pine instead. I was in charge of looking for a cabin and I found this modern cabin on Airbnb that seems like it was newly built.

We checked in on Friday night and settled into the Airbnb. The place was beautiful! It had high ceilings and tall windows. There were two bedrooms and a loft upstairs, along with a twin-sized bed stored in the closet. Once we figured out where everyone was sleeping, it was time to celebrate my dad’s birthday weekend!

Saturday morning, we all woke up and my stepmom began cooking for us. She’s always cooking and making sure that the family is well fed. I always tell her to start her cooking YouTube channel back up again, but she’s so busy cooking and taking care of my brothers. Don’t know how she does it all!

In her spare time, she loves photography and creating content… Just like me! It’s so fun going on trips with her because we both share the same interest. She’ll take my photos and I’ll take her photos. So much easier than having a boyfriend and having to train them to be an Instagram boyfriend, ha!

All of us, except for my sister, were playing Minecraft. Side note – a year ago, I was obsessed with Minecraft and played it for 8 hours straight. Now, my obsession has toned down a bit since none of my brothers were into Minecraft anymore. Apparently, they recently released a new update that is supposed to have frogs and several other cool features. I have yet to explore what these new updates are, but I don’t think my Minecraft obsession will be coming back anytime soon though – at least I hope not!

We spent some time lounging around, sitting outside, and playing Catan. It was great to enjoy the summer breeze in Pine – the weather was in the high 70s, which was so nice. My stepmom ended up taking a nap outside too!

We also spent some time indoors singing karaoke. I love hearing my youngest brother Collin sing – he can match pitch, which I think is so impressive! My sister Nina is also a pretty good singer as well. I might be the only one in the family that can’t seem to match pitch, but my go-to karaoke song is Umbrella by Rihanna. I will sing any song flat proudly!

In the evening, we had dinner outside celebrating my dad’s 60th birthday! We got a cake from Tous Les Jours in Mesa, which was so fluffy and delicious. We also played truth or dare after dinner, and my brother Derek was pretty brutal with his dares.

One of his dares was to text an ex-boyfriend that you miss them. Uhh, no thank you. We had to pay $10 if we chose to decline to give the truth or do a dare. I, of course, chose to pay $10 than to have an ex-boyfriend even think I miss them, ha! Nina also had pretty funny dares for Derek – one of which was to pitch my dad’s butt and walk away with no explanation.

We ended the night by wearing face masks! Nina got all of us (the siblings) Pokémon face masks from Little Tokyo when she went to Los Angeles a few months ago. Side note – I had a really hard time searching online for these face masks. It seems like ever since the pandemic, face masks went from facial masks to cloth masks! Anyway, mine was Eevee, Nina was Pikachu, Derek was Mew, Brendan was Slowpoke, and Collin was Psyduck. It was entertaining to surprise my dad with our face masks on.

The trip to Pine was so much fun and I love seeing my dad happy celebrating his birthday since he’s not one to celebrate things like this!